The Power Of Love
by DreamsRMyLife
Summary: Many mothers sacrificed themselves for their children during the war with no success, until Lily Potter. But there was much more to her sacrifice to save her son than even Lily thought. As she watches her son from the afterlife all she can do is pray he'll forgive her when it's his time to move on, because the price is one she never would have had him pay if she only knew.


**The Power Of Love**

Summary: Many mothers were willing to sacrifice themselves for their children's lives in the war, with no success. Lily Potter had to do something extra for her success. But there was much more to her sacrifice to save her son than even Lily thought. As she watches her son from the afterlife all she can do is pray he'll forgive her when it's his time to move on, because the price is one she never would have had him pay if she only knew.

**Oneshot: The Power Of Love**

During the war against the Dark Lord Voldemort, there were casualties that reduced the British magical population to a third of its already dwindling size. A huge number of people died: many of them children, many of them adults, some of them parents and several of them mothers. Most of those mothers dearly loved their children, and like Lily Potter, they threw themselves as best they could between their child and the Dark Lord and begged for the lives of their young to be spared. They were all killed anyways.

That begged the question, of course: what was so special about Harry Potter?

The answer was that it wasn't Harry Potter at all. It was entirely the work of Lily Potter that allowed Harry to survive the Killing Curse. The Boy Who Lived was amazing, people thought! Those who knew of Lily's role in things thought her to be even more remarkable; imagine her brilliance, to be the first mother to save her child from the killing curse and defeat Voldemort in the process!

Lily Potter, as she watched the life of her son, her precious baby boy, hated herself for it.

The obscure protection that Lily Potter used was indeed based on love like Dumbledore thought. He thought love was a great and powerful force, and it was; it was enough to save a child from the killing curse and so much more. What he was incorrect about was the idea that it was based on _Lily's _love, and that's where it all went wrong. Blood magic had been outlawed for centuries, and what Lily found had been a translation of a translation and not entirely accurate the way she thought it was. Instead of using Lily's love as a base for the protection upon her willing sacrifice, it used her sacrifice to activate the ritual protection that used all love _for Harry_ as its power.

So as the blood protection activated, it drew on all the love that it needed to reflect the Killing Curse. Unfortunately, not being well known by many and James already being dead, it was a little short on power and so Harry Potter got a scar on his forehead where a fraction of Voldemort's soul became lodged.

With the temporary draining of such a positive emotion, Sirius Black became more than willing to hand over his injured, orphaned godson to Hagrid's hands. Dumbledore was more than willing to give Harry over to the Dursleys to keep the blood protection activated, and leave the soul fragment in the boy for its use, as he believed it would keep Harry alive in the final confrontation the prophecy predicted. It was a testament to how much she had cared about Harry that Minerva even managed a token protest against leaving him with the Dursleys for fear of his wellbeing, but ultimately she caved in. Remus didn't think twice about his friend's son and disappeared into isolation. Magical Britain celebrated as their supposed saviour was sent to an abusive household, and didn't much care to find out more about him after Dumbledore assured them he was safe and the Harry Potter book series came out on the shelves.

Anyone who saw Harry's early life could tell how bad the Dursleys were. People who suspected Harry's home situation wasn't right would wonder how on earth Petunia was related to Lily, because they couldn't equate the two women of apparently drastically different personalities.

The only one who didn't blame Petunia was her sister Lily, because she knew it wasn't actually the Dursleys' fault. It was hers, for using that blood protection ritual.

A one year old was no match for even a fragment of Voldemort's soul, which should have been able to possess Harry. The active blood protection refused to allow this, but once again required power to work. And so any love that the Dursleys developed for young Harry Potter was used to lock away the soul fragment in his scar at all hours of the day. Without love to push it away, fear and anger took its place in the Dursleys. Harry Potter shouldn't have survived his early years of malnutrition and injury as well as he had, but the blood protection drew on the passing care that neighbours and people at school developed for him to direct towards keeping him alive. Thus no one around him cared enough to notice the mistreated child.

Things got better as he got older and his Hogwarts letter came, and so Hagrid quickly developed a soft spot for Harry Potter, giving him his first tour and experiences of the magical world. Harry was held in high regard by most of the student population as the Boy Who Lived, and Lily Potter once more began to hope for a decent life for her boy.

But then the protection had to be used to keep him alive from his Quirrel-induced quidditch injury, and so Minerva McGonagall took points away for 'pranking' Neville when Harry was actually sending off Norbert and didn't believe him when he claimed the Philosopher's Stone was in danger.

In second year, the school quickly turned on him for his speaking parseltongue. Harry believed the students to be very fickle, but he had burnt Voldemort-possessed Quirrel a few months before. All the love the students had felt for him had been taken to fuel that, and so it was rather easy to turn against Harry Potter. Most of them didn't care for him at that point anymore. He got nothing but a cover up when he finally killed the basilisk instead of redemption and adoration in the eyes of the student population. The blood protection was used yet again to keep him alive after being injected with basilisk venom long enough to destroy the diary and wait for Fawkes' tears to neutralize the poison; as basilisk venom has no antidote, the tears needed the blood protection to truly work and save Harry's life.

By third year Harry was nearly killed by Dementors, and so the escaped Sirius Black thought mostly of capturing the traitorous Wormtail instead of reconnecting with his godson. He did care enough to send a broom as a gift, though, and for the most part Harry enjoyed an almost quiet year.

Fourth year the triwizard tournament mess happened and he had to lose the entire love of the British magical population who believed him an attention-seeking, lying glory hound in exchange for surviving the ritual that resurrected Voldemort and the subsequent fight against him and his Death Eaters.

He should have been hospitalized from blood loss long ago from Umbridge's blood quill in fifth year but the protection activated faithfully once more and no one cared enough to stop the torture. Since no one acted to save the Boy Who Lived, other tortured students decided that nothing would be done so why complain and possibly earn more detentions?

Lily was actually relieved when Harry allowed himself to be killed by Voldemort in the battle for Hogwarts. She apologized and cried every time he was hurt or in life-threatening situations, of which there were far too many, and hoped that now her son could finally find peace. What she didn't count on was what Dumbledore was counting on. The blood protection was still working, and Voldemort's killing curse sent Voldemort's soul fragment to its death instead. Harry's soul remained in his body which was only mostly dead during this time, and Lily with a sinking heart knew what would happen. Like Dumbledore had planned, Harry Potter survived the encounter horcrux-free.

When Voldemort was destroyed for good the wizarding world rejoiced, and Harry was able to fade into obscurity for a while once more as their love was used to revive him. When they began to care for him again he was hounded by press and fans alike. He was an auror for a short while, but didn't want to deal with the constantly shifting public opinion that he never related to the dangerous situations he escaped from. Sure people thought the was obscenely lucky to get out of some of the situations he did alive, himself included, but no one ever thought it was anything more. No one ever noticed that after getting out of those situations, or healing quickly from debilitating injuries, that the wizarding world soon experienced easy changes of heart towards him.

Harry went on to marry Ginny Weasley, but the marriage was a struggle behind closed doors. In the end, Ginny continued to a quidditch career and usually wasn't home, while Harry quit his auror job to raise their kids. Harry thought he cared for her, but it wasn't love, just the closest thing he could find to it and basing it off of the peer pressure everyone was using as they kept telling him what a good match the two were.

Dumbledore thought love was Harry's greatest strength, and he was right. He believed it was Harry's ability to love that would let him triumph against Voldemort, and he was wrong. Harry didn't know what love was. His life hadn't allowed for it. For that, Lily cursed herself, and prayed every day that when her son finally died of old age and passed on he would forgive her when she confessed all this to him.

It wasn't the fault of a prophecy, a meddling old headmaster, hateful relatives, a dark lord and his followers wishing him dead, himself for going along with all the manipulations recklessly, or the adults in his life (or the ones that deliberately left it) for failing him. It wasn't the fault of the authority figures for their corruption or inability to solve the problems themselves, or a fickle population that thought he was their saviour one moment and the worst dark lord in existence the next. _His own mother _was the reason his life was so bad. She had cost him the love people had for him. Lily never would have cast that protection spell if she had known the price was to be paid by her son.

The irony was heartbreaking; her love for her son caused this to happen, and her love for her son was why she wished it hadn't.

The power of love was something truly amazing, and truly frightening, and it was Harry Potter's greatest power.

It was also Lily Potter's greatest regret.


End file.
